Trump Organization criminal tax fraud conviction

On December 6, 2022, after roughly two days of deliberations, a jury in New York County Supreme Court convicted the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corp., the two principal operating entities of the Trump Organization, on all 17 counts charged by the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. The counts included scheme to defraud in the first degree, conspiracy in the fourth degree, criminal tax fraud in the third degree, and falsifying business records in the first degree. The case was brought by then-District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and tried under his successor, Alvin Bragg.

The core conduct, charged across roughly fifteen years, was a scheme in which senior Trump Organization executives, principally Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg, were paid significant portions of their compensation in off-the-books fringe benefits, including luxury apartments, private school tuition, leased Mercedes-Benz vehicles, and bonuses routed as if they were independent contractor payments. The arrangement allowed the executives to evade personal income taxes and the corporate entities to evade payroll taxes. Weisselberg testified for the prosecution under his August 2022 plea agreement to fifteen felonies; he served five months at Rikers Island and later pleaded guilty in March 2024 to a separate perjury count tied to his civil fraud testimony.

On January 13, 2023, Justice Juan M. Merchan imposed the maximum statutory penalty available under New York law against a corporate defendant: $1,610,000 across the two entities. The fine was the largest criminal tax penalty ever imposed in New York County against a closely held real estate company. Donald Trump was not named as a defendant in the criminal case, and his children were not charged. The conviction stands as the only criminal corporate conviction of the Trump Organization on record. It preceded by less than eighteen months Trump's personal felony conviction on May 30, 2024 in the Manhattan falsifying business records case, also tried before Justice Merchan.